This story discusses some of the main plot points of episodes of ‘Para Tales’.

The crucial elements of a film—storyline, cinematography, audio quality, editing, and lighting—are rarely all perfect. However, in the horror genre, all the elements must excel and also complement each other to create a truly visceral horror experience. Recent Nepali horror movies(‘ Sunkesari’ and ‘Ghar’) haven’t set the bar very high. Though ‘Para Tale’, written by Navin Awal does an excellent array of storytelling—cinematography, acting, plot development—it also falls into some of the same-old Nepali cinema failings.

The first episode, ‘A Night at the Mud House’, of ‘Para Tales’, produced by Silhouette International Pvt Ltd, begins with an all-too-familiar premise: a lone wanderer (in this case, a vlogger) wanders for far too long; the night falls unexpectedly; and the wanderer is forced to take shelter in a spooky house. Even the vlogger reminds us of this age-old horror story premise by saying, “I hope ki ma kunai haunted house ma gaera baas nalium (I hope that I will not take shelter in a haunted house).” One could argue that this foreshadows and builds suspense, but the makers could have used more grace.

An old man lives in the house and graciously agrees to let the vlogger spend the night in a room. However, there’s a catch: his daughter had committed suicide in the very room. With the classic horror premise laid out, the story inevitably progresses towards expected strange and spooky happenings: the vlogger is frightened by the ghost of the old man’s daughter; a stranger’s voice out of the window urges the vlogger to run away; and lastly, the entrance of an invisible entity (visible for a brief moment in the vlogger’s camera screen) through the doors. We come to find out that the house is haunted by the ghosts of the old man and his daughter in the end.

Although the opening episode of the four-episode series is anything but ground-breaking, it does set up the stage nicely for the following episodes plotwise. The ending scenes of the first episode show police officers discussing an ‘incident’ in Nuwakot and the police get a hold of the vlogger’s camera and memory card.

The second episode titled ‘The Haunted Highway’ adds yet another puzzle piece to the whole mystery. The beginning of the episode shows a guard(whose name we later find out to be Gopal Nepal) in a police interrogation room, who denies killing someone and instead rambles on about a child. A weird sequence of phantasmagoria is shown of Gopal and a suited and booted man stumbling through a forest thick with fog on December 13.

Then the story moves towards the main character of the second episode, an oblivious biker who stops in the middle of a desolate forest road for a nature’s call. As he is relieving himself, a bright orange ball falls out of nowhere. The scene of the biker slowly creeping towards the ball, with one side of his face constantly illuminated and the other half flickering on and off to the lights of his bike, is a notably foreboding scene. The rider is petrified as he meets one ghostly apparition after another, and even a ghostly bus.

At the end of the episode, the ghostly bus rams into the well-dressed man in front of Gopal. Both Gopal and the rider are left utterly confused at the end of their whole ordeal, like us viewers.

Episodes one and two are arguably weaker than episodes three and four—a possible reason being the short length of episodes one and two (approximately eight and nine minutes, respectively). In comparison, episodes three and four have much longer run times (approximately 16 and 12 minutes, respectively). In the first two episodes, the characters aren’t fleshed out properly. The minimum dialogue in episode one feels like they are there just for the sake of it, and there are minor audio glitches (the stranger’s audio out from the window in episode one sounds like someone whispering in your ear rather than a voice from outside).

Episode three, titled ‘CCTV’, begins with a female villager who shares to the police that the mother had lost her daughter, who was mentally distraught after the incident and had ultimately committed suicide. It is the same mother who had haunted the vlogger in the mud house. After her death, she began to haunt the villager, too—and then we move on to December 13 again.

Gopal is in charge of monitoring the CCTV room of a mansion alongside his friend Hari, both of them in a drunken stupor. As they discuss the trivialities of their lives and their job duties, the guard notices a little girl in one of the CCTV feeds.

The conversation between Gopal and Hari feels like a real conversation of real people, a far better execution than episode one. But during the conversation, the scene is shown from behind the CCTV feed screens, with the screens obscuring some parts of the scene. As viewers, we feel like we are witnessing the POV of someone spying on the two guardsmen.

As Gopal gets spooked more and more by ghosts of a mother and daughter, we find out that Gopal isn’t as innocent as he seems and the scares aren’t just random happenings. Gopal’s guilty secret of the past is uncovered, and the ending sequence of episode two with the ghostly bus ramming a man makes sense finally.

The fourth episode, ‘CCTV: The Revelations’, ties off the remaining loose ends: how an accident occurred due to Gopal’s negligence; how Gopal convinced his employer, Karun sir, to flee the scene; and how the incident derailed the lives of family members.

Though the performance of the mother and daughter are believable, the duo's costumes make the whole scene jarring. Rather than looking like normal villagers, they look dressed for a cultural dance, complete with over-the-top makeup and unnecessary ornaments. On the other hand, Gopal’s acting, especially in the third and fourth episodes, pulls the viewer’s attention as the character struggles with delusions and spooks.

As the episode progresses, Gopal is distraught as glimpses of the past and his deeds—the crime, the realisation, and the convincement to flee the scene—continue to haunt him. Gopal starts to hallucinate endlessly. At one point, we see him clawing the air through a CCTV feed. The juxtaposition of his delusions with the actual reality of events through CCTV feed is well-done. And finally, he starts to shoot and hits not the ghosts but his friend Hari, who slumps lifeless into the ground. Back at the police station, his head is covered with sweat as he is interrogated. He keeps denying killing anyone. But the CCTV feeds tell another story: He, suffering from his hallucinations, shoots his friend point-blank.

Cinematography is a prominent aspect of the series. The camera pans slowly from close-up to medium, creating suspense, and it mimics the characters' actions and close-up shots while the characters' raw emotions of terror complement the plots.

The audio aspect also does fail here and there (only in episodes one and two). However, the background soundtrack and scoring, much needed in horror stories to set the story's mood, are inserted craftily and set the suspenseful tone of the story. The plot also deserves mention. Instead of a typical linear plot, the events are sequenced in an entertaining way—how the typical horror story of a wanderer spending a night in a haunted house opens up Pandora's box of festering secrets.

Though the series starts off slow with the first two episodes, the third and fourth episodes tie off the end well. Most horror stories share a clichéd premise, but good horror stories craft a unique horror experience for the audience and ‘Para Tales’ is definitely a step in the right direction.

The four episodes of ‘Para Tales’ are available pay-per-view on the Fopi app.